


The Raven and the Wolf

by Flammenkobold



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Murder, Pre-Slash, Rape, Serial Killers, Suicide, Teen Wolf Rare Pair Fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/pseuds/Flammenkobold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Hale used to kill people long before the fire, Stiles' mother helped him (and sometimes he helped her) and they were the best of friends. Also, Stiles' hallucination was kind of right and his mother's legacy is a bloody one Stiles is finally ready to face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Raven and the Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This was written for the Teen Wolf Rare Pair Fest on Livejournal. Special thanks to my beta reader itschristaleigh.
> 
> Please heed the warnings in the tags as there are some topics in this fic that might be triggering; most of it is only mentioned and not graphic, though.

 

It isn't often that Stiles dreams about his mother anymore. He sometimes doesn't know if that is better or worse than dreaming every night about her. The nice dreams, though, hurt more than any nightmare, because the split second after he wakes up he is happier than he has been in years, until reality crashes in and he remembers that she isn't there any more. 

 

The nightmares are something else entirely. He used to dream about her dying again and again, but these days the stuff he's been through in the last months filters through and makes them downright disturbing at times. 

 

The worst dreams are the ones that are more memories than dreams. Stiles never likes those, because they linger the longest after waking up. It's easier to push the others away, but these one linger around the entire day. Sometimes it's old, worn memories, so often recalled that he doesn't even realizes he's remembering. Sometimes the memories are forgotten ones, so long buried that they tear up his entire mind and soul when his subconscious mind unearths them.

 

Like the one he woke up from a few seconds ago, panting hard for breath.

The day his mother died she was in the hospital and looking better than she had in weeks. She had scribbled down something on a slip of paper and pressed it in his hand, telling him where to go and whom to give it to. 

 

"And Stiles," she had said and her frail hand squeezed his with such strength that he had looked up in surprise. "Don't read it and remember Rule One." She had given him a secretive smile then and he had shared it, reciting what she had taught him. "Don't tell Dad, don't let him ever find out." 

 

It was important that his dad didn't find out, that he didn't tell him anything about the things him and his mom would do sometimes, because it was their little secret. Because it might hurt his father, and _You don't want to hurt him, do you honey?_ , of course he didn't want to. 

 

He had then gone to the long term care ward, looking for nurse Jennifer. Her hair had been short then, plain and lackluster, red but not in the same way that Lydia's perfect hair was red. She had given him pills and at the time he had thought they were meant to make his mother better. 

 

Stiles remembered carrying them back to her and seeing the thoughtful but relieved look on his mother's face. She had hugged him tight then and thanked him, told him everything was okay now, everything was good and that he shouldn't forget what she had taught him. He had forgotten, though, for years, buried it deep in his memory, because it had hurt too much to think about their little secrets, because she was gone and wouldn't come back. 

 

"Go home now, honey, I'm tired," she had said. He had thought the medicine would make her better, but it didn't. It had done the opposite.

 

Stiles sits in his bed breathing heavily clutching his head in his hands. "Fuck," he mutters. Trying to make sense of the not-nightmare. "Fuck," he repeats. He tries to reassure himself that it was just a dream and nothing more. Tries to convince himself that his subconsciousness is just twisting his memories and recent horrors into correlations that don't exist. Except. Stiles knows that this was his real memory. This was what truly happened all those years ago. 

 

At ten years old he hadn't been old enough to truly understand what happened and too traumatized by his mothers death, even though he had already known, deep down, that she wouldn't get better.

 

Now he's older and still grief stricken, but also more alert and aware of what happens around him and what happened then. 

  
"Fuck", he says for the third time as every little detail of memory filters through. His mother had committed suicide. She had sent him to get her the medications she needed to do so. A broken laugh escapes his mouth. He always thought that he had killed his mother, now he knows he truly did. Stiles shakes his head, because this can't be happening.

  
There is another thing he takes away from that dream. That his mother somehow knew Peter Hale's nurse. Somehow he doubts that this is a coincidence. It's what he clings to, something to figure out, another puzzle to keep his mind occupied and to keep himself from going mad over the other thing he just remembered.

 

\----------

 

They met when they were six. It was a bright summer day and the sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees in the forest. Peter knew he shouldn't play with a human girl, that it was dangerous. If he lost control she would tell her parents and his family would be hunted. Or his father would kill her first. 

  
He did lose control that day, but she was fascinated and not scared at all. He loved her from that very second. She didn't tell anyone and his father didn't kill her. Peter got beaten up, though, badly, because he smelled like a human child. He already knew how to twist his words to not lie. "No, please, she doesn't know what I am." Yes, she saw him, but she didn't know that he was a werewolf. His oldest sister, Talia, stopped his father. She was braver than anyone else in the pack. Peter was afraid it wouldn't take long before his father would kill his favorite daughter and Talia wasn't yet strong enough to truly oppose him.

 

\--------

 

It takes a bit of breaking and entering, bribing Danny with a new fake ID and stealing Mrs. McCall's keys to get the documents he needs, but in the end Stiles has more information to look through than he strictly has time. There is still werewolf stuff and school and the rest of his life going on. It's another secret to add to the ever growing list of things he keeps from his father and the fast growing list of things he keeps from everyone else.

 

The evidence he has by the end of the night is shocking, but not really conclusive for what he wants to know. Peter's nurse used to work on the ward his mother was treated at for months and the number of people dying then was higher than after she transferred to the long term care ward, where all of a sudden the number of people dying increased slightly. No one ever questioned it probably, because those were both wards were people tended to not get better. What catches his eye is, that she transferred right after Peter was brought to the hospital. Weeks after his own mother had been transmitted there.

 

He doesn't quite know what it means, but he has a dreadful hunch. Stiles' eyes fall on the books about the supernatural, about werewolves and suddenly it only grows. The books were his mother's. He searches for his her year book, which is hidden away in a box in the attic and leafs through it. There it is. A picture of a younger Peter Hale and while almost everyone else has left her a note under their picture, there is none there. A lack of evidence is evidence too, Stiles thinks and his heart beats wildly.

 

He is sure now that his mother knew about werewolves, knew about the Hale's. Knew Peter.

 

\--------

 

The first time Peter killed someone he was eight years old. 

 

They both knew that they had to keep their friendship a secret, knew it from the moment they sat foot into the same classroom at age six, some weeks after they had first met. Peter didn't knew exactly how his father would retaliate should he ever find out, but he was sure that one of them would die. She knew better than to bring friends home to a mother who had been lost to depression after her father died, and who only clawed herself out of it by clawing open her daughter's skin with blunt fingernails. 

 

Peter sneaked into her room at night, not wanting her to sneak into the woods, to play. Because at school they might be in the same class but they only interacted when the teachers wanted them to and otherwise they started building their own circle of friends. No one knew that they knew each other and Peter took great pride in having found ways to cover up her scent whenever he returned home. Talia taught him a bit about it and he took what she gave him and perfected it.

 

One of those nights her mother burst into the room, screaming at her for whatever reason even before she noticed Peter. He should have heard her, should have paid more attention to the noises in the house, but he had been too concentrated on their game and too tired. Another mistake and something he taught himself not to make again. When her mother did notice him though, all hell broke lose. The woman dragged her daughter out by the hair, yelling and raising her hand to hit her again and again and Peter saw red. All he wanted was to protect his best friend.

 

He shoved her away and got in the way. A second later her mother tumbled down the stairs, her neck breaking.

 

They stared at each other, shock painting both their faces and Peter was panting heavily. He wanted to apologize to her, but he couldn't say anything and it didn't matter either way as she grabbed his hand and looked down the stairs.

 

She gave a sigh of relief then.

 

\---------

 

In the next dream Stiles has it's his mother instead of Lydia lying on the grass of the Lacrosse field, Peter hovering over her like a predator, the blood of Stiles' mother dripping from his chin. Stiles' heart beats fast and hard and he almost panics as he skips to a halt in front of them. He screams at Peter "What have you done!" Peter just tilts his head and chuckles, as Stiles shakes his mother and cries. "Mom, please. Wake up." He is afraid that she is dead but then her soft laughter joins Peter's. "Oh honey," she says and sits up, blood running down her side, but she doesn't seem to mind. "Don't worry, the wolf would never hurt the raven."

 

He wakes up, frozen to the bed and can't get up for several minutes, panicking. When his breathing finally levels out and he gets his thoughts in order, another forgotten memory returns. As a child it was his favorite story and it was his mother's favorite to tell. She would hide with him under the covers when she told it to him and made him promise to keep it a secret. 

 

Stiles realizes there must be a lot more things he doesn't quite remember about his mom. Mostly he suppressed the memories, because they hurt too damn much. He can remember the sound of her laughter, the gentle look in her eyes when she looked at his dad, the secretive smile she would give him, but he can only remember because these are things he can't forget no matter how hard he tries. Like he can't forget the way how she expertly wielded a knife when she skinned a hare she had killed in the forest.

 

\-------

 

Peter told her about the legend that was passed on to him by his mother when they were ten. An old family story. The kind that every old werewolf family had their own version of. 

 

One winter when there was barely any food to be found a wolf got separated from his pack and was chased by hunters. When the wolf was about to give up he came across the raven. She was caught in a net and said: "I'll show you a way to hide, if you free me." 

 

The wolf agreed and freed the raven and she led him to a hollow tree. There they would hide for the night, but the raven got cold and said: "If you give me your fur for a few hours I will show you good prey in the morning.” 

 

So the wolf took the fur from his skin to keep the raven warm. When the hunters passed the hollow tree all they saw was a poor man with an odd pet. When morning came the wolf took his fur back and they went hunting. The wolf brought down his prey and said to the raven: "Come, eat with me, raven, you deserved your share too." 

 

After they feasted on it the wolf said: "Goodby raven, I must find my way back to my pack now." 

 

"You helped me and I helped you and you shared your food with me. You won't find it alone in this weather, so let me help you." 

 

The wolf agreed and so the two friends made their way through the snow. The raven led the wolf when there was no scent to be found and the wolf led the raven when wind and snow were too harsh too fly. When they were so close that the wolf thought he could find the way back on his own the raven called down from the sky to tell him to go in another direction. 

 

The wolf, however, was so sure that he would find them now that he kept running in the same direction. He found his pack, but the hunters had found them before him. He howled for hours over his loss and the raven fluttered down and sat beside him. When he stopped the raven said: "I didn't want you to find them like this. I am sorry." 

 

"Now I am all alone," the wolf said sadly. 

 

"You've still got me," the raven said. 

 

"Will you help me then, avenge my family, good friend?" 

 

"I will," said the raven. 

 

So together they hunted again, the raven leading him again when the wolf could not find a trace of the hunters and the wolf leading the raven when the wind was too fast to fly. When the wolf found them he fought hard and slayed most of the hunters, but before long he fell down too, unable to fight anymore. Just then the raven swept down on the last of the hunters and pecked out his eyes. The hunter fled, but because he could not see his way anymore he got lost in the cold woods. 

 

When the moon rose that night the raven asked it for the life of her friend. The moon said: "There will be a price to pay." And the raven answered. "When we pay it together it won't be too high." So the moon brought back the wolf. 

 

They lived together until the end, each leading and protecting the other in times of need.

 

In the story his mother and Talia told him, they never specified the gender of the wolf or the raven, but Peter and his best friend preferred the story their way. He started calling her his raven then and she would laugh in delight. 

 

When he finished the story for the first time, she said: "I wonder what the price was."

 

He smiled at her. "We could find out."

 

She punched him in the arm. “Don't you dare.” She huffed out a laugh. "But if it ever comes to it, we'd pay it together," she promised.

 

When Peter finally found out what it was, she was almost as long gone as his family. Her son, however, was there.

 

\-------

 

Stiles gets occupied by other things soon enough, because of course, _of course_ , there is an Alpha pack in town, trying to get them all killed.

 

Even then the dreams won't stop and bit by bit he remembers more and more things about his mother he had thought forgotten. 

 

The lessons she had taught him. How to built traps. How to kill smaller animals. How to hunt in the forest. How to trust his instincts and let them lead him. How to find and follow a trail, both on paper and on ground. 

 

He starts applying them to the Alpha pack. Sometimes he thinks Peter is watching him, but if he really does he is good enough to never let Stiles catch him. He hasn't outright asked Peter what connected him with his mother, partly because he doesn't know how that conversation would go and partly because he isn't quite sure he really wants to know.

 

Finally, it's his father who gives him another trail into his mother's past.

 

It's the second time this year that he fills his father's glass to the brim to try and get some information out of him on the latest murder cases. Worryingly enough he doesn't feel as guilty as the first time.

 

Just when Stiles is about to leave with the information he has tricked out of him, when his father is just drunk enough, he says something he would never say sober. "Your mother used to do the same." Stiles freezes and watches the sad smile on his father's face, just as he raises his glass to toast Stiles.

 

"What?" Stiles asks flatly, a second away from panicking for so many reasons. It's nothing they talk about, not when both of them are sober.

 

"When she wanted to get something out of me about my cases she got me drunk too." He smiled at Stiles sadly, like he didn't fault Stiles for the things he had done.

 

"I-" Stiles starts, but can't get out another word, his mouth dry. He has to wipe his eyes. 

 

"It's okay, Stiles," his father says and looks down on his hands, on the ring on his finger. "I think she even hid some old case files in the attic."

 

\-----------

 

When he was twelve years old, Peter tried to kill his father. He had gone after one of his older siblings almost killing them and Peter was so scared he would come after him next, or worse, after strong and beautiful Talia. 

 

He told his best friend about what had happened and she told him that this couldn't go on. They spent nights hidden away in her room at her foster family's house trying to find a way. One night she tapped on the book in her hands, a pretty picture of the most deadly plant to werewolves. "Poison," she decided and they figured out how to make it work without getting Peter killed too.

 

Three days later Talia found him hidden in a closet, badly beaten up. He barely escaped and his father survived, but is too weak to look for his youngest son. "What have you done?" his sister asked and gently pried him out of his hiding place. He was shaking, crying. The words he said barely made sense, but apparently enough to get Talia to understand that he just wanted to protect his family. 

 

"Oh, Peter," Talia muttered and looked sadly at him. He grabbed her hand and with wild eyes begged her to finish it. She recoiled then, of course. 

 

"I couldn't...," she started. 

 

"Yes, you can, if anyone can then it's you. Think, Talia, please. He already hurt two of us and he's going to kill me now. And do you really think it'll stop there?" Peter was always good with words. Even when he was so scared he could barely form them. 

 

Her resolve wavered and Peter begged her again. She traced the slowly healing scratch on his cheek and he felt it close faster than before. Talia should be the Alpha. "He's weak now," Peter whispered and watched Talia make her decision. 

 

He watched her from the doorway of the room his father was recovering in as she killed him. "I should have killed you when you were born," his father spit out and looked at Peter, while the life drained out of him and Talia's eyes started to glow red. 

 

Later he met with his raven in the woods and told her about his father's words. "I'm glad he didn't," is all she said and held his hand.

 

\-----------

 

There are old files of unsolved cases in the attic, some have notes scribbled into them in his mother's untidy handwriting, some illegible some not. Stiles tries to make sense of them but mostly can't. The cases are few and mostly nasty business. 

 

Stiles takes the ones with notes added to them and tries to find out more about them. 

 

When he comes back from the fifth investigation something cold has settled in his stomach and his mind is aflame. 

 

Mostly he had just asked around, because if anything, he is good at talking and it is the easiest way to get information out of people. Two of the main suspects in each case have moved away the same year the crime was committed, their addresses unknown. In one case it didn't even make sense that the man would move away. Two more died in an accident. One in a car accident on the street that leads through the woods and one at work where she was alone at a time she shouldn't have even been there. Stiles absolute favorite though, hands down, is the man who got apparently mauled by a mountain lion.

 

He is going to believe that story the day he believes that it was a mountain lion who terrorized Beacon Hills a few months ago and not Peter Hale on a revenge trip. 

  
\----------

 

The first time they intended to kill someone and went through with it, they were fourteen. The father of her newest foster family hit his sons constantly as well as his wife. He hadn't laid a finger on her yet and Peter would do anything in his power to not let anything happen to his raven.

 

They agreed on poisoning, again, because it seemed like the cleanest option. As it turned out it's really not. The man was raving when he found out that something was wrong with him and Peter got between him and his best friend just in time to prevent him from delivering a blow to her head with a hammer. 

 

How they were going to explain bite and claw marks on someone who didn't own a dog was beyond him at that moment. 

 

They stood there and watched the man die, gurgling on his own blood. It was fascinatingly horrifying.

 

Afterward, she sent him away, she was going to take care of the rest. They hugged like it was the last time they would see each other. Peter didn't go home, instead he hid behind the bushes by the corner and watched as the police turned up. He watched her talk to a relatively young officer, who put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and had a kind smile. 

 

Later she joined him in his hiding place, like she knew where he was all along. She pointed at the young man and simply said with a soft smile: "I'm going to marry him." Peter believed her.

 

Six years later she did.

 

\-----------

 

Stiles decides it's time to talk to Peter. But before he actually can, he gets kidnapped by the Alpha pack. It's like a curse, he thinks sourly, while sitting in the same room with a very charming leader, but at least there is no physical violence – yet. 

 

He also wonders why every Alpha except for Derek wants to offer him the bite. 

 

He didn't say yes to Peter and like hell he is going to say yes to Deucalion. There is something even more unsettling about him than there was about Peter and it takes Stiles some time to figure out what it is.

 

The kind of absolute carelessness that Peter projected when it came to hurting strangers came from the same place that had once made him care too much about the people he loved and lost. Something that Stiles, deep down, can relate to. Deucalion on the other hand doesn't seem like he ever cared about anyone so much that it would utterly destroy him should he lose them. 

 

Stiles uses his sharp words for his own safety and to distract Deucalion. Maybe to even find a way out before he is torn to pieces or turned against his will. Miraculously someone comes to his rescue this time, though the source is surprising. Or perhaps not, considering all the things he has found out in the last time. 

 

By the time Peter drags him out of the apartment complex he was held hostage at, the whole building is on fire. Stiles coughs heavily and in the distance he can hear faint sirens growing louder.

 

"Fire? Really?" he gets out between gulping breaths and Peter shrugs.

 

"It served the purpose and it certainly was effective," he says and looks sharply at Stiles. "As you perfectly well know." There is a distinct memory of Molotov cocktails flashing through Stiles' mind.

 

"Yeah, well," Stiles says and rubs his neck to buy some time for his next words. "Thanks for the rescue, I guess."

 

Peter flashes him a grin and gives him a mocking half bow. "My pleasure." Stiles wants to hit him, but doesn't.

 

There is a distinct difference between different kinds of sirens, if you have heard them all your life and there is no mistake in recognizing the particular sound of his father's police car. The slight lilt in the usual sound produced by age and one accident.

 

Stiles' hasn't really panicked in some time, but now it hits him violently. The very thought of his father running into the Alpha pack, however unlikely it is now with everything on fire, does that. He wants to get him away from here, distract him maybe, be close to his father just to make sure that he doesn't get hurt.

 

The very moment he wants to call out to his dad, who is just getting out of his car, a hand clamps down over his mouth and strong arms pull him back into the shadows.

 

"Rule One," is all Peter murmurs into his ear.

 

\-----------

 

Their little stunt with her foster father caught the attention of a hunter. Not an Argent but someone else who, luckily, worked mostly alone. 

 

Peter was always sure that Talia, at least to some degree, knew what he had gotten involved in. It was the way she looked at him and would always keep looking at him. A bit of regret mingled with caution that burned deep. She still trusted him. Always would until her dying breath and it was only after that he betrayed the trust she had put in him completely.

 

She trusted him then, even though he had brought them to the attention of a shrewd, old hunter named Jonah.

 

He knew he couldn't just kill the man, that it would bring others to their little town. So Peter and his raven spent night after night trying to think of another plan, something to get rid of Jonah. He had already tried to get close to the now reduced family his best friend still stayed with and find out something about the unusual death of their father.

 

In the end it was a stray comment Talia made during one of the family meetings they had over the same topic, the hunter and the mauled man.

 

"Perhaps it really was just a stray dog," she said carefully and rested a hand on her belly, her first child already kicking, a strong heir for the Hale family. "Or maybe the Omega, Paul has seen a few days ago." Everyone had looked uneasily at each other, until their oldest brother had spoken up too.

 

"Well it sure as hell wasn't one of us." 

 

Talia had nodded and not looked at Peter.

 

When he told his best friend about his plan to convince the hunter that it had been the passing Omega she had listened intently. "You could bite me and I pretend that he attacked me too. I already told him all I saw was a dog. If I go to him now for no reason he might suspect me being involved."

 

He tugged at one of her hair strands and grinned. "And what do you tell him where you got it."

 

She batted his hand away and matched his smile. "Why I played in the woods, of course."

 

In the end there was a dead Omega and a hunter on his way to somewhere else.

 

\-----------

 

"Okay," Stiles breathes. "What the hell?" He doesn't even know what to ask first or how to formulate his questions, not when a tiny part of him doesn't even want to think about them. There are flames and the fake light from the police cars dancing far away in the night. Peter had gotten them away to a more secure location further away.

 

"Now, now," Peter murmurs and looks so calm that it makes Stiles even more jittery. Still, there is a glint of amusement in Peter's eyes. "I take it you have some questions."

 

A broken laugh escapes Stiles lips. "You could say that," he bites out and runs his hands through his hair. This can't be happening. At least they aren't at the apartment complex anymore where the smoke would make breathing even harder and where his dad is.

 

"My Mom," he starts and licks his lips. "You and..." He points at Peter and notices that his hand isn't shaking as much as he thought it would. "You and her! Jesus, what were you guys doing?"

 

Peter tilts his head, his eyes still fixating Stiles. "I know you did your research, so tell me what you think we were doing."

 

"How do you...Were you following me?" Stiles asks incredulously. Peter merely gives him a flat look to get Stiles back to the actual topic.

 

"'Cause that's so not creepy," Stiles mutters and digs his fingers into his palm. It says a lot about his life that it really isn't the most creepy thing happening in it.

 

There is a thick lump in his throat that makes it hard to swallow and even harder to speak. "You killed people," he spits out in one breath. At this point he just wants this to be over.

 

"Ah," Peter says and lifts his hand to interrupt him. "But only the ones who deserved it." It's the ghost of an older conversation between them, and there are so many things Stiles could throw back at him, because it's not even a good answer. There are laws and law enforcement to determine whether someone deserves punishment. Stiles might have gone around them more often than not in the past year, but that doesn't make it a justified action. Besides, Peter has proven often enough that he doesn't really care if someone deserves it or not. Otherwise his own niece and the school's janitor would still be alive.

 

"Rule Two," he says instead and finally understands the second lesson his mother gave him.

 

_What we do we do to protect, to avenge or to prevent_ , she used to whisper in his ear and he had nodded along, not really getting it, while she taught him how to wash blood out of his clothes he got from getting into a fight at school.

 

Peter's lips split into a smile. “Exactly,” he says. Stiles feels like he is going to throw up.

 

“Why?” he asks weakly and Peter gives it some consideration like he hasn't done it before.

 

“Who else would have done it?”

 

“Oh my god,” Stiles wheezes, and the panic kicks in fully. Peter is there in a second a warm hand touching him lightly on his arm while he keeps away far enough to still give Stiles some space to retreat, which is fucking ridiculous because Peter usually doesn't give a damn about personal space.

 

“Breathe, Stiles. It's okay.”

 

“No,” he says, and moves away from Peter. His eyes are blurry. “No it's really not.” He wipes at them to get the wetness away. “My Mom used to help you kill people,” he snaps at Peter, and the truths of it sinks in bringing a new wave of nausea with it. “My Mom was a serial killer helping a sociopath-” He doesn't get any further than this because Peter pins him to the grimy wall of the abandoned warehouse they are hiding in. 

 

“Your mother was a wonderful person,” Peter hisses, and there is something wild and terrifying in his eyes and voice. Something that Stiles is familiar with because he has felt it so often himself when someone said not so nice things about his mom, or when someone tried to hurt Scott or talked badly about his dad. The feeling of it had made him beat up other students in the blink of an eye more than once in his past and made him an outsider without being the victim of physical bullying. Rage born out of soul crushing love.

 

Stiles stares at him wide eyed and Peter backs away slowly, his face lined with as much confusion as Stiles feels. Like he can't believe the emotional reaction he has either. His eyes meet Stiles' and there is so much pain in them, looking at him like Peter wants Stiles to understand something.

 

“You know, sometimes I helped her,” he simply says.

 

Stiles' heart beats loudly in his own ears and he swallows before running away.

 

\---------

 

When they were sixteen a boy in Peter's basketball team loudly proclaimed that he had slept with sweet little Elsie and that she really loved it, making everyone in the locker room laugh with his story. It spread from there and drowned the quiet whisper that Elsie didn't enjoy it at all and didn't want it.

 

If she had claws and fangs, Peter was sure, his best friend would rip the boy's throat out herself. 

 

The night of the Winter Formal she flirted with the boy and lead him out behind the sports field. Peter was waiting for them in the shadows in his werewolf form. When he jumped out the boy screamed and Peter's raven laughed. “Now, who is screaming like a bitch?” she asked and the boy turned in horror to run. 

 

Peter was good at hunting, always knowing how to drive his prey where he wanted it to be. He led the boy to the steep ditch close by, where he tripped and fell down, hitting his head hard enough to draw blood. Peter pinned him there and within minutes she was there too, gloves over her slim fingers. She took the rock he had fallen on and bashed it against his head once, in the same place he had hit it before. Hard enough to kill him. 

 

Peter retreated into the woods, her eyes following him with grim satisfaction until he was gone, and then she screamed her lungs out until someone found them and called the police. She told the nice, young police officer about the tragic accident. How they had wanted to get away a bit to a more quiet place and how the boy had tripped and fallen. Pretty tears flowed from her eyes, her whole body shivering until Stilinski put his jacket over her shoulders like a gentleman.

 

Peter was never sure why no one had suspected her ever of anything after being at the center of a crime scene three times so far.

 

\---------

 

It's Peter who ultimately seeks him out the next time they meet.

 

He knocks at the front door while Stiles' dad is at work, like this is the most normal thing. Stiles can see him through the glass window in the door but for some reason it doesn't make him hesitate to open the door. 

 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, standing his ground and blocking the entrance to the house.

 

Peter smiles pleasantly at him. “I came to apologize and to talk, if you want.” He questioningly cocks an eyebrow and a muscle in Stiles' cheek twitches. There are still questions he has, but he isn't sure if he can handle Peter's words right now. Then again, there really isn't ever a time when he can.

 

“Okay.” He nods warily at Peter and takes a step aside. Peter steps inside and his step is less sure than Stiles is used to from him. Like the floor he is standing on is new and dangerous terrain. He watches Peter look around interested cataloging little things, like the end table next to the entrance to the kitchen. His hands trace the pattern on it, a colorful mosaic Stiles' mother made herself from broken glass. 

 

“I'm sorry for my behavior the last time we met,” he says slowly, like he hasn't done worse in the past, hasn't treated Stiles worse. Stiles wants to snort, but keeps himself still. “I wasn't quite prepared for my own reaction. It has been some time since I felt this strongly about...something.”

 

Stiles rolls his shoulder trying to get some tension out of them while still watching Peter carefully. “Well, yeah...” he says in lieu of something substantial, because how is he going to respond to that? He hadn't expected to see such raw feelings in the eyes of a man who was as dead on the inside as Peter either. His jaw works hard for a moment trying to force the words out that have been clanging around his head ever since the day of the apartment fire. 

 

“You loved her, didn't you?” It's a rhetorical question because he has seen the evidence of it on Peter's face. 

 

Peter turns around sharply and Stiles almost jumps, if it weren't for the intense look with which Peter pins him. 

 

“Yes,” he says, and it comes out viciously, making Stiles flinch.

 

There is a dreadful thought crossing his mind that Stiles would like to have never thought.

 

“Um, so you and her...Oh my god, don't tell me you were...” he doesn't quite know how to say this, feels too panicky to actually follow the thought through but Peter gets it anyway and is clearly amused by it.

 

“Don't worry Stiles, I am not your father,” he says smoothly, and Stiles gives a hollow laugh. 

 

“How funny.” His voice is flat but he can't quite keep the suspicion that still lingers out of it.

 

“She was my best friend,” Peter continues, one finger raised to catch Stiles attention. “My raven,” he adds and there is an odd sort of possessiveness in his voice. Stiles doesn't want to know this, doesn't want to know about their friendship and what they did, but he needs to. Needs to hear more about his mother, about the woman he loved so much that it still haunts him, who his father loved so much that he still can't talk about her unless he is drunk and even then it's rare. Peter knows things no one else does about her.

 

“Like in the story?” 

 

Peter nods and seems pleased that Stiles knows it. It's something Stiles has to let sink in but Peter doesn't give him much time to process.

 

“What else has she taught you?” he asks calmly, his eyes fixed on Stiles who feels too restless to return the favor. His own gaze is flickering between the couch and the door and the small table, the pictures on the wall.

 

He shrugs. “Not much.”

 

“Now that I can't believe,” Peter says, a light smile touching his lips. “Think, Stiles.” His voice is suddenly harder and Stiles focuses on him.

 

“I said it already, not much,” he repeats himself, growing angry at Peter's disbelief. Peter stays calm and just watches him.

 

“She didn't teach me much about the stuff you got up to!” Stiles snaps. “Why would she?”

 

“Think, Stiles,” Peter repeats. “What did she teach you?”

 

Stiles runs his hands over his head in frustration. “Not much,” he grits out for the third time, but now he is thinking about it.

 

“The story, the rules-”

 

“Which ones?” Peter needles him.

 

“I don't know! A few, all of them, perhaps.”

 

“There were ten.” Stiles hates how calm Peter sounds and hates it more that he knows them. So he simply nods.

 

“What else?”

 

Stiles' head spins. She taught him an awful lot after all. How to hunt, how to get blood out of his clothes, how to cover up tracks and a lot more that he now remembers. It hurts. Not just the knowledge in itself and of what it means, but the overwhelming love he always held for her that comes with his memories. He feels sick.

 

“Why do you even want to know?” he screams at Peter, and gets up into his face. Peter looks at him with those unreadable eyes.

 

“You know why.” And Stiles really, really doesn't want to.

 

“No I don't!”

 

Peter doesn't say any more and just leaves.

 

Stiles drops down in front of the couch and buries his head in his hands. He remembers his mother holding his hand shortly before she sent him to get the wrong medication for her.

 

“Honey, you know the story I told you?” He had nodded keenly, not needing to ask which one she meant. “Then always remember that he'll need a raven to guide him.” She tapped his nose with her index finger. “Someone like you.” Stiles hadn't known who she had been talking about.

 

He did now.

 

\---------

 

When they were eighteen and almost finished with school they went on a roadtrip together. Peter had told Talia that he was going on a trip with the rest of the basketball team and had told the team to cover for him because he wanted to spent some time with a girl he had met. Of course they all agreed and cheered him on, Clive even pressing a condom in his hand with a cheeky grin.

 

They had three entire weeks to themselves.

 

They went to different parties, fake IDs and charming smiles giving them access to whatever club they wanted to and witty remarks and tight shirts granting them invitations to several house parties. He couldn't get drunk and complained about having to carry her back to the hotel room more than once while she laughed against his neck. His blood was pumping with adrenaline and he felt a rush coursing through him as if drugs could affect him too. In San Francisco they found a special brand of wolfsbane that allowed him to get high as well and neither of them went to sleep for two days straight. 

 

Their fun was cut short when they literally stumbled into Jonah, the hunter. A wrong word, the smell of wolfsbane clinging to Peter and the lights of a passing car hitting his eyes at the wrong angle at the wrong moment and not even a minute later the old hunter was dead and Peter on the ground bleeding heavily and blood, blood, blood dripping from her hands. A drop on her cheek that looked like a red tear as she knelt next to him and helped him to get his intestines back into his body.

 

After that the real party started because Jonah had friends and family as it turned out.

 

By the end there are dead bodies strewn over California leading away from San Francisco and in the opposite direction of Beacon Hills.

 

After they shook off the last hunter (you sadly couldn't kill them all) she sank next to him on a smelly mattress in a shabby motel somewhere close to nowhere. Her brown eyes shone with exhaustion, worry and dry laughter.

 

“So back to home, my wolf?” she asked. He laughed tiredly, thought of Talia, her two children and the rest of his pack and nodded, pulling her close and falling asleep.

  
\---------

 

The next time they meet Stiles isn't even surprised to see Peter. He is too tired to be. The Alpha pack has made their next move and Derek and Scott are still recovering in Deaton's animal clinic. The worst is, by far, that his father got caught in the crossfire and is recovering in the hospital. Scott's mom has reassured him that he is fine and just needs a bit of rest but that doesn't stop him from worrying. Stiles is done with everything. Werewolves, psychopathic hunters and everything that comes with them.

 

His dad sends him home just after midnight telling him to get some sleep and stop worrying because he is the adult and not Stiles, dammit. Stiles doesn't want to obey but he is just tired and seeing his father in a hospital bed because of fucking werewolves riles his nerves up too much to argue. 

 

Peter waits for him next to his jeep and slides into the passenger seat as if he belongs there. Stiles would never admit to it but having him there is oddly calming. There is an Alpha pack in town and probably a thousand more dangerous things out there that he doesn't yet know about, but the most dangerous man Stiles knows right now is sitting next to him.

 

Peter is dangerous, there is no doubt about it, especially so because he can make himself appear more innocuous than he is. And he has something that Stiles desperately wants: knowledge. 

 

“First things first: Did you know who I was when you tried to get Scott to kill me the first time?” he asks acidly, unable to make his voice sound less aggressive, despite what he wants from Peter.

 

Peter tilts his head and his fingers tap absentmindedly on the passenger door. “Let's say I had an inkling but I wasn't sure. Not until I really met you in the hospital.” Stiles can live with that answer. “Any more questions you have before we get to the main course?” Peter inquires mildly.

 

“Yeah. In the parking garage, did you offer me the bite because you knew her?”

 

Peter snorts and somehow can make it sound elegant. “No. I offered it to you because you would have been magnificent,” he says, and his eyes lock on Stiles with an intense look in them. It makes him feel pinned and uncomfortable. It makes his heartbeat speed up for all the right reasons in an absolutely wrong situation.

 

“Okay,” he agrees weakly, not wanting to go further into details with this topic. He has wondered often enough if he had made the wrong call that night. “Did you ever ask her?”

 

Peter inhales deeply and closes his eyes. “I offered to ask my sister for her, yes.” There is a long uncomfortable silence stretching between them and Stiles' throat feels too tight to say anything and Peter doesn't seem to want to break it. “She knew the risks of what the bite could entail.” _...if it doesn't kill you and it could_ , echoes through Stiles mind. “She wanted to wait until she really had no other option left.”

 

Stiles is glad that it's the middle of the night and he can just pull over on the abandoned street and close his eyes against the incoming panic attack. If the fire hadn't happened perhaps his mother would be alive.

 

“Shh,” Peter hushes him. “It's okay.” Through his own tears he can see Peter's glassy eyes. “I miss her too. It's okay.” Surprisingly it is and Stiles can breathe again. His hand has found Peter's and he is clinging to it like a lifeline. “I was angry at her, you know? I left Beacon Hills for a while after she refused,” Peter says conversationally, and his words are oddly calming. “I sometimes wonder if I hadn't left, if I would have noticed-” and right there that's enough “what if” for Stiles and far too many truths at once. 

 

“Back to business,” he rasps out, disentangling their hands and Peter manages to smile shark-like.

 

“If you wish.” Stiles nods and Peter continues. “What do you want?” 

 

Stiles is sure that Peter already knows and just wants to hear him say it but he can't exactly deny him that. He thinks of his father and Scott and even Derek and his terrible joke of a pack. “I want to end this. I want to protect them, whatever it takes. I want you to teach me everything you know, everything she knew.” Stiles breathes in deeply and then mostly out of spite adds. “And I don't want you to be an Alpha again.” 

 

Peter smiles almost proudly. “I have to admit that this isn't one of my main goals in life anymore, considering the outcome of the last time. So, lets say I agree to your conditions, what do I get out of it?”

 

Stiles squares his jaw and looks him in the eyes. He doesn't need to ask either because he knows what Peter wants, but he does so anyway. “What do you want?”

 

“Oh, I think you know perfectly well what I want. But fine,” Peter concedes and indulges Stiles too. “Another guide, a raven. You.” His voice raw and possessive and Stiles has to avert his eyes. He thinks about Lydia. He should say no for what Peter did to her alone. He thinks about Allison and Erica and then about Scott and his father again. Stiles swallows and shakes his head, not in denial but to get it clear.

 

He thinks about all the reasons why he pulled his arm away the last time they were in the parking garage. Except it's not the same and if he plays this right he could be the one in control (can pretend he is at least). 

 

“Okay,” he says and looks back at Peter. “Okay. Yes.”

 

\-------

 

They were twenty when he met her outside the small coffee shop she worked at, right around the corner from the police station. There was already a cheap engagement ring on her finger and a gleam in her eyes. Both had been there for three weeks already.

 

“Good news?” he asked, grinning at her and her ridiculous apron.

 

“What makes you think that?” There was no challenge in her voice and she leaned back against the low brick wall behind her.

 

He shrugged and shielded his eyes against the bright sun. “You hardly ever want to meet me during the day. Unless it's good news.”

 

She smiled brightly at him and took his hand, resting it right under the place where her heart was. He could feel it pulsing calmly. There was something different about her.

 

“I think I'm pregnant.”

 

His own heart clenched at those words. Peter remembered how utterly helpless he had felt when his sister had put Laura into his arms directly after she was born.

 

“Already?” he joked weakly. “You two don't waste time.”

 

“I'm not sure, silly. I said I think I am.”

 

“I think you are too,” he simply said.

 

“Oh, good.” Her voice was suddenly a bit faint, too. “Better than a pregnancy test.” 

 

“So if you don't want to, you know, hunt anymore-” She pushed against his shoulder, but still kept hold of his hand.

 

“Don't be stupid. I still want to. Especially now,” she said, and the look in her bright brown eyes was fierce. “And I might have a lead on the murder last week.” He laughed and then they schemed.

 

When she put her baby boy with her father's name into his arms he didn't feel afraid at all.

 

\-------

 

Murdering someone, shouldn't be so easy. It definitely shouldn't make him feel satisfied. That's however everything Stiles comes up with, when he stands over the body of one of the Alpha twins. Stiles isn't even quite sure which one it is. He also feels slightly nauseous because there is blood everywhere and how the hell are they supposed to cover this one up? Most of it is Peter's too.

 

“I'd say that wasn't so bad for a first time,” Peter rasps out, and Stiles leans down to examine the wound at his throat closing far too slowly. At least it wasn't deep enough to seriously harm him. 

 

“We still need a way to get rid of the evidence and I don't think saying it was a mountain lion attack will cut it this time.”

 

His own hands come up and trace along the seam. Peter watches him carefully but unafraid. Stiles takes his hand away when the wound seems to close faster.

 

“Leave it to me and pretend to be traumatized in front of Derek and Scott.”

 

“I don't think I need to pretend,” Stiles says. He feels like throwing up. Peter's hand closes around his wrist and his fingers stroke along the pulse point. Stiles' stomach settles at the touch.

 

“Oh Stiles,” Peter murmurs. “What have I told you about lying.”

 

Stiles snatches his hand away and rolls his eyes. “We still have a problem at hand, you know?”

 

Peter sighs and manages to get up. “Well, then it's time to teach you a few things more, don't you think?”

 

Stiles closes his eyes and every single memory of his mother floods his mind for a moment. “Better get started now,” he says, and when he opens his eyes again Peter is in front of him, smiling mischievously. Stiles can't help but to return his smile. 

 

This was going to be good.

 


End file.
